CSU Intern Researches & Writes CALPA History

During the last two years, Jan Pitts has been a CSU Sacramento intern working with CALPA. Her main responsibility was to write a history of the organization. To accomplish this task she gathered notes, newsletters, documents, and a plethora of primary sources from all over the state. This history became her Master's Thesis entitled, California League of Park Associations: The First Twenty Years, 1983-2003. CALPA commends and thanks Jan for all her hard work and dedication. We are proud to print here the conclusion to her thesis:

California has been plagued with chronic budget deficits, and the State Park System, all too often, fell victim to cutbacks leaving its natural and cultural resources threatened. Moreover, understaffing remains endemic throughout the Department of Parks and Recreation, and increased law enforcement has overburdened the role of park rangers. Consequently, cooperating associations undertook an expanded responsibility in interpretive coordination. In some instances, confusion arose as to who was in charge of the volunteers, the Department or the cooperating associations. Many believed they were contracted to provide interpretive services and coordinate volunteers. However, this was never the intent or the purpose of cooperating associations.

The cooperating associations program, nationally and locally, was designed to allow contracts with nonprofit corporations to raise funds in support of interpretive and educational services. The original intent of this relationship was synergistic in order to benefit the public. CALPA and its membership should not consider this purpose without prestige, because fundraising is essential and immeasurably imperative to the State Park System.

The Department and CALPA together with its membership must strengthen their partnership, share resources, and create new ventures. They should work toward a partnership covenant that emphasizes accomplishment of mutual purposes and shared missions, yet understands the independent needs and interests of each other.

As technology fosters independent and often impersonal work, partnerships satisfy the human need for community. Partnerships concentrate on people rather than differentiating, allowing people to come together as peers for mutual benefit, and encouraging them to look for shared interests, goals, and benefits reinforced by a shared sense of purpose. Partnerships also recognize that common risks often result in common rewards.

In light of the most recent budget crisis, the State of California Department of Parks and Recreation will again call for CALPA and its member association to help shoulder the burden of education and interpretation and to help preserve parks for future generations. The Department's call for partnership and cooperation will not be new, but CALPA and its members will answer with the support that is increasingly more vital to the State Park System.

The history of the California League of Park Associations has been written on the silver and gray mantles of its founders. The first twenty years have been its prologue. The elders heard the call for and "association of associations" and helped it to stand - "independent but not alone." CALPA knows where it came from and where it wants to go. Now it must decide the direction and how it plans to get there.